Trump is impeding the Mueller investigation and has crossed a red line Activists nationwide are taking to the streets!

Earlier today, after firing Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump installed one of his cronies to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, crossing a red line. This action is a brazen effort to interfere in the Mueller investigation. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has previously outlined in great detail how he would impede the Mueller investigation if he got the chance.

MoveOn and progressive organizations nationwide are activating the "Nobody Is Above the Law" network, meaning there will be actions around the country tomorrow, Thursday, November 8 at 5 p.m. local time.

The Marin rally is at 5 p.m. at Court Street Plaza in downtown San Rafael, off of 4th St. between A Street and Lootens. It is is being coordinated by a committee representing various Marin-based advocacy groups. If you plan to attend, please sign up here.

A large crowd is anticipated. Over 1,000 people had signed up previously via the MoveOn site to protest in the event of a constitutional crisis related to the Mueller investigation, and new sign-ups are rolling in quickly following news of the national protest via Rachel Maddow and other high profile people.

Public transportation, carpools and services such as Lyft are advisable. If driving, allow plenty of time for parking.

Please dress warmly and bring a flashlight if you have one. Homemade signs are encouraged.

This will be a peaceful protest and the safety of all participants is our first priority.

Last night, citizen engagement put Democrats back in control of the House. The significance of this victory can not be overstated. We now have legal authority to hold Trump to account, and clout to both advance progressive legislation, and derail much of the Trump/GOP agenda.

Members of Indivisible Marin played an impactful role in making this victory possible. Together, we sent over 500K text messages, wrote 6,000 postcards and made about 1,000 phone calls to elect new, progressive members of Congress - many of them women and minorities.

Katie Hill's win, announced just hours ago, is particularly sweet. For Katie alone, our members sent 100K text messages, wrote 5000 postcards, and made hundreds of phone calls. Right now, with more ballots still to be counted, she is ahead by a mere 4000 votes. So, it is no exaggeration to say that the work of our members could have made the difference between a win and a loss in this district for Katie! We are so proud of this awesome team! It really is true that working hard for every single vote is how races are won.

What's next? Now, after resting a bit, we will get back to our mission - advocating for a clean climate; economic justice; health care for all; voting rights; racial, gender and sexual equality; a woman’s right to choose; and respect for the human rights of all citizens.

We need your input - Next week, we will be sending out a survey to all members. We want to hear from you about the issues that you care most about, and the ways that Indivisible Marin can best support you as activists. We hope that all of you who joined us recently to campaign will continue to stay engaged in our ongoing work to advance a progressive political agenda.

Thank you for all you do to contribute your time, expertise, energy, and commitment to help ensure that American values endure.

Hey, we understand that phone banking is not your favorite campaigning activity. BUT, according to campaign staff and much research, phone banking and canvassing are THE MOST IMPORTANT tactic in the final month of the election cycle. Why? Because interpersonal conversations are the best way to connect with and convince individuals to vote. So lets suck it up and do the thing that is most likely to help vote the ba#*#rds out!

The good news is that campaigns are now rolling out a new form of phone banking called predictive dialing. Using a platform called Hubdialer, the calls are made via the platform and you are only patched through when a person answers the phone. This GREATLY increases the efficiency of phone banking, which is one of the key complaints that some people have with this phone banking.

Please go to our calendar, and sign up for some phone banking events. No worries if you have never done it before - we provide training and support. Once you’ve been trained you can call from home at designated times.

We also offer one-to-one training! Please sign up here to arrange to meet with a trainer at a mutually convenient time.

This year’s California Legislative Season has wrapped up, with bills now waiting for Governor Brown’s signatures. Throughout 2018, Indivisible Marin has taken StateStrong’s lead in making sure that our elected state officials are voting on bills that we care about. Many thanks to the leadership of Indivisible Marin members Sue Saunders, Susan Spitzer, Holly Bogin, Doug Brown, and Susan Morgan together with Indivisible Sonoma and Indivisibile Sausalito members Heather Young and Lisa Bennett for joining me in making sure that our elected officials Assemblyperson Marc Levine and State Senator Mike McGuire voted with us. And, thanks to many of you for making phone calls when we put out a call to action.

See StateStrong’s wrap-up for more details about the bills that we were following this year. Two bills not on that list because they came to our attention in the last two weeks before the end of legislative session, thankfully failed. AB 84 - The Political Reform Act would have put more money directly into the hands of California legislative leaders, giving them greater influence over campaigns. 25 plus Indivisible Groups, including Marin submitted a letter to the state Elections Committee in opposition to the bill. The other, AB 813 would have regionalized our electrical grid and given away control of the grid to coal-producing states and the Trump administration. Given that this was a high priority of Governor Brown’s, it was kind of a shocker that the bill died before heading to the floor for a vote.

Our legislative team at Indivisible Marin will be gearing up right after the midterm elections in November to make plans for how we will work with Mark Levine and Mike McGuire once the new legislative year starts in January 2019. Email indivisiblemarin@gmail.com if you’d like to get involved.

We are working feverishly to get Democrats to the polls in November. But what if their votes are not counted properly? Our efforts could be in vain and Republicans may steal another election.

We are seeking a few volunteers to help with an important project that could help prevent this scenario. Participation entails making calls to election officials - a commitment of a few hours a week for the next several weeks is all it will take. You will be trained beforehand. Calls need to be made during business hours.

If you can do this important work, please contact us at indivisiblemarin@gmail.com.

Background:Unlike in years past, nearly all votes cast in the United States are fed into computers for counting. Even if you vote on a paper ballot, that ballot is scanned into a computer, not counted by hand. While that may sound efficient, it’s a huge problem because these computers can be programmed to produce any result, no matter how people voted.

The new generation of electronic vote-counting machines have ballot scanners that create a digital image of every ballot and count the votes via the images. Digital image files can safely be made public for oversight without violating voter privacy. These machines are already in use in counties and states all over the country. But elections officials are ignorantly deleting the ballot images, which are legally protected election materials!

Project:Imagine if you and a group of your friends could count the votes in your community and match your totals against official results. And even challenge the official results when they're wrong (which they often are). This scenario is actually possible! An organization called AUDIT-USA is setting out to protect our election process through it Ballot Images Project. Courts have already ruled in our favor in both Arizona and Alabama. They are now taking this project nationwide. Our task force will participate in this effort by making calls to elections officials to ensure that they are preserving ballot images.

We need a return to transparent and verified elections.Please volunteer to help!

As you know, Indivisible Marin has endorsed Anna for her demonstrated passion for and alignment with our priorities for advancing social justice in Marin.

Let’s join her at her Campaign Kick Off on Wednesday, September 5th from 6:30 - 8:00 PM at VenturePad in downtown San Rafael.

The Kickoff is an opportunity for Anna to thank supporters for our victory in the June primary—and share how you can get involved to help her win on November 6. RSVP here by August 31 so we can get a headcount.

Also, on September 1st, you can canvas for Anna in Hamilton on Saturday from 10:00 AM -1:00 PM. To volunteer for that or to help Anna’s campaign at other times with phonebanking, textbanking, canvassing and more, sign up here.

Do you know people who might want to help us Take Back Congress but don’t know how to begin or get involved?

Please invite them to Marin’s Volunteer Recruitment Fair on Sunday September 16th from 3 - 5:30 PM at the San Rafael Community Center. Or better yet, bring them yourself. It is being hosted by the NorCal Blue Wave Alliance, Indivisible Marin, Indivisible Sausalito, Swing Left Marin, Sister District Marin, and Novato Stands United. All of these groups and more will be present talk about ways that people become get involved and get them signed up and rolling.

We also need volunteers to staff the event. Please sign up here for a range of roles.

At the fair, participants will learn about MANY ways they can help and choose those that fit with their schedule and interests. At the end, they will be able to sign up on the spot for electoral actions they can take, both in Marin and in neighboring red districts.

During the fair, we will hold continuous, revolving, 20 minute introductory sessions to demonstrate how to effectively connect with voters using various electoral tools like canvassing, phone and text banking and writing postcards.

All introductory sessions will also have sign-up tables where volunteers can register for specific actions on the dates and times that best fit their schedules. All volunteers will go home with a passport containing detailed information on what they have volunteered for including: the sponsoring organization, the event, the dates and times and website details of all participating groups.

This is a family-friendly event! We will have a kids table to entertain them while their parents register to volunteer!

You can attend the fair for 20 minutes or two hours, whatever fits your schedule!

This coordinated day of recruitment will be part of The September Swell, a month-long volunteer coordination effort involving other cities in Northern California organized by the NorCal Blue Wave Alliance. Bring your friends and family to learn about all the ways you can get involved in flipping Congressional seats to take back power in Washington.

As our Director of Research here at Sister District Action Network (SDAN), I’m so excited to share the results from our March 2018 postcarding experiment conducted in conjunction with the voter registration efforts of the Voter Participation Center (VPC). Overall, we found that our postcards significantly increased voter registration rates! Read on for more information.

Objective:To determine if the receipt of a handwritten postcard a week before or a week after receipt of an official voter registration form increased the odds of people completing & sending the voter registration form back to their Secretary of State.

Specifics: Sister District Action Network (SDAN) partnered with the Voter Participation Center (VPC) to send handwritten postcards encouraging registration to eligible, unregistered individuals living in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona in March 2018. These postcards were sent in conjunction with VPC’s Voting Age Population Program, which sent official voter registration forms to these same people.

Key Findings:

The major finding of this study was that handwritten postcards sent after the receipt of voter registration materials (chasers) had a significant positive impact on the odds that a person would return their materials. Unregistered individuals had 20% higher odds of returning the completed form when they were sent a chaser, compared to the odds of returning the registration form after receiving the form alone (without a postcard). This finding achieved statistical significance (p=.009), after controlling for individual-level variables.

Sending a chaser was more effective than sending a postcard prior to receiving the registration form (i.e., a primer). But both target groups that received postcards completed their forms in higher numbers than the control group that did not receive any postcard. This means that receiving a postcard increased the odds of registration completion by about 14%. This finding also achieved statistical significance (p=.036), after controlling for individual-level variables.

Interesting Group Analyses:

Race. Asian and Caucasian people had the highest response rates, with both groups returning the largest percentage of registrations by race. Black, Hispanic, and Native American people all had much lower rates, indicating Asian and Caucasian people may have been especially motivated by the postcard in a way that other people were not. It is clear, however, that receiving a postcard after the receipt of the registration form produced the most successful registrations in all racial categories.

Age. Age may also provide some interesting insights about postcard effectiveness. For voters under 25 and voters in the 50-64 age range, the utility of the postcard was minimal. However, for voters 25-39, who had the worst response rate overall, we saw a large increase due to receiving either postcard. We also saw a large increase in voters 65+, the group with the best response rate, when they received the postcard after the registration form. Similarly, people 40-49 also saw a boost from receiving a chaser postcard. This indicates that there may be especially large value in postcarding in conjunction with voter registration form receipt for voters 25-49 and over 65, but may not provide as much value for voters under 25 and between 50-64.

Takeaways:

The SDAN+VPC postcard program significantly increased the number of people who successfully completed and submitted their voter registrationform through the VPC VAP Program.

Sending a postcard after receiving the form was more effective than receiving it before.

Postcards were most effective in increasing registration completion among Asian and Caucasian Americans.

Postcards were most effective in increasing registration completion for individuals in the 25-39 and 65+ age ranges.

Caveat: these subgroup analyses (race and age) provide suggestive evidence about which groups responded best to postcards, but are not definitive evidence. More testing is required to gain a deeper understanding in order to understand how to best engage different groups.

SDAN’s Contributions:

SDAN volunteers purchased, completed, and mailed 57,259 postcards to eligible, unregistered individuals. Without your hard work, this experiment could not have been completed!

VPC has replicated these results and is now using the central findings in additional voter registration programs and contexts.

The results of this study are particularly impressive, considering our expectation of a low response rate due to the particular VPC program that was utilized.

Next Steps:

VPC is eager to continue working with SDAN. We are planning a follow-on postcarding experiment. This experiment will target a VPC program know to prompt the highest response rate, will replicate and further validate our results, and will continue to build on this encouraging preliminary work.

Note that this experiment tested the use of postcards to boost voter registration. The study does not tell us about the utility of postcards to boost voter turnout. We will be planning experiments to test the use of postcards for voter turnout, to see if the encouraging results we’ve seen for voter registration extend to turnout. Stay tuned!

Due to the enormous popularity of our Wine and Sign events in Corte Madera, Indivisible Marin is expanding its post carding program to meet the demand of our enthusiastic volunteers and to offer an additional convenient location for our members who live in North Marin. We will be hosting two "Write to Win" events in August at Sports Basement on Vintage Way in Novato. Families and students of all ages are welcome!

Join us from 7 – 8:30 pm on Wednesday, August 8th and Wednesday, August 22nd to write postcards in support of Katie Hill’s US congressional campaign in CD 25, currently considered a toss-up race. Katie grew up in the district and is the executive director of the largest non-profit provider of homes for the homeless in the state of California. If elected, she will be the first openly bisexual member of congress. Katie is not accepting any campaign money from corporations or Super-PACs. Fine out more about Katie and her progressive platform here.

Post carding is a very effective way to reach out to voters, encourage them to vote, and support strong Democratic candidates. We offer post carding, as well as weekly text and phone banks, in coordination with campaigns for candidates in red districts to help flip Congress and take back power in Washington! All post carding supplies will be provided and light snacks served. Please note that, per Sport’s Basement policy, no alcohol will be served.

We have exciting news to report! We have been experiencing dramatic growth over this last month. People are "riled up and ready to go" following the terrible developments regarding the separation of families, the far-right Supreme Court nominee, and now Trump's treasonous behavior in Helsinki. The midterms are less than four months away and taking back Congress is the only way to stop this extreme threat to our democracy.

Many of you who are planning to attend the meeting are new to Indivisible Marin. We want to offer you a more substantive agenda than the summer format we had originally envisioned would have allowed. Plus we have now outgrown a private home.

So, we've changed both the venue and the format. The new location is the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin at 240 Channing Way in San Rafael. We will be meeting in the Fireside Room. Upon arrival, head across the outdoor patio area to the right of the church, and you will see the entrance.

At the meeting, we will provide you with an overview of our strategy to ensure that every hour spent by each of our volunteers will be as impactful as possible toward our collective goal of winning back Congress on November 6th. We will also have an introduction to textbanking and write postcards to voters.

We will have an optional orientation for new members at 6:30 PM to cover some background on our history, structure and operating philosophy, as well as that of Indivisible National.

Thank you for stepping up and engaging in this fight. Together we will take back Congress - once phone call, once text message, one postcard and one voter at a time.